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Ministry of Power gives clearance for the undertaking coming up at Manuguru in Kothagudem district

The Union Ministry of Power has given its clearance for the 1,080 MW (270x4) Bhadradri Thermal Power Project (BTPP) at Manuguru in Kothagudem district being established with sub-critical thermal generation technology.

In a letter addressed to the State Chief Secretary with copies marked to the Principal Secretary (Energy) of Telangana and Chairman and Managing Director of Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TS-Genco) two days back, the Ministry of Power stated that it has “no objection for establishment of the said coal-based thermal power plant with sub-critical technology subject to its completion by December-end 2017”.

The nod from the Ministry of Power follows Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s request to the Centre last month by writing a letter seeking to exempt the Bhadradri power project from allowing (commissioning) only the super-critical technology thermal power …

They are demanding that the govt. increase it to Rs. 2,000 from Rs. 500
To demand that the State government increase monthly pension under old age, widow, Devadasi and disabled schemes, several beneficiaries, most of them women, sent Rs. 500 back to the government when they received it through money order in Raichur on Friday.
Members of the Rashtriya Pension Parishat and several beneficiaries were standing in a queue at a post office branch in the city to send back the pension amount of Rs. 500 to government.
They said that the monthly pension amount received by them is very little. Their demand to increase pension from Rs. 500 to Rs. 2,000 per month remained unattended due to the negligence of the government.
Monthly pension for the beneficiaries in other States had been increased at a time when the salary of government servants was increased. But, the State government has still not shown interest in adopting such a move here, they said. Abhaya, Sharanappa Hanumamma, Lachhamma, Dur…

Collectively, the court’s choices this year have shown us that any independence it enjoys hasn’t guided it towards concerted courage in decision-making
The Supreme Courtfinds itself at a curious juncture. It has spent much of the year lodged in a widely broadcast battle with the Union government over judicial appointments. Led by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, who retires on January 3, 2017, the court has fought this contest presumably to assert its independence from executive and legislative control. But, somewhat counter-intuitively, the wrangle has had a deleterious impact on the court’s moral authority. The court has not only been intransigent in allowing the executive no say in matters of appointments, despite the Constitution’s clearly contrary mandate, but it has also failed to make the existing system — selections througha “collegium” of senior judges — more transparent and democratically justifiable. What’s worse, while constantly stressing on its apparent autonomy, the court ha…

The election of its first black President was the beginning of the change America needed, and which the world applauded. It is also the change America has reversed and which the world is regretting.

“He is half-black,” Nadine Gordimer said in a conversation in Kolkata in the November of 2008. Barack Obama’s just-concluded election as U.S. President was the biggest thing in the air. Of course he is half-black, I told myself. Surely the Nobel laureate had a more original comment to make? And then came a typical Gordimer one-liner: “He is also half-white.” Later, to wider hearing, she elaborated the nuance: “Obama has been celebrated as a black man. But he’s half black and half white. To me, that symbolically represents a kind of advancement in recognising the human tribe as one.”

Gordimer’s assessment was simple and profound. Mr. Obama was half out of a world that thought small, half into one that could think, be big. He was advancing; he was, in a sense, the advance. And not just that…

The ceasefire reached between Syria’s government and Opposition, with the mediation of Turkey, Russia and Iran, could be a turning point in the country’s civil war. Unlike the two previous failed ceasefires this year — which were negotiated between Russia and the U.S. — the latest one is sponsored by countries directly involved in the conflict. The positive reaction from both the Syrian regime and rebel commanders to the announcement of the ceasefire by Russian President Vladimir Putin also suggests that the warring parties are willing to give diplomacy a chance. For the Syrian government, this is an opportunity to announce it is ready for a peaceful settlement. Though President Bashar al-Assad has repeatedly claimed that he would retake the entire territory from the rebels, a military solution appears to be illusory. A prolonged conflict will exhaust the regime forces further and multiply the humanitarian costs. On the other side, after the victory in Aleppo, the regime could now ne…

The Reserve Bank of India’s biannual Financial Stability Report has once again flagged the fact that risks to the banking sector remain worryingly “high”. That the risks have stayed “elevated due to continuous deterioration in asset quality, low profitability and liquidity,” in the central bank’s assessment, is cause for concern. Given the central role commercial lenders have in the financial system — serving to harness public savings and direct the flow of crucial credit to the most productive industrial and infrastructure sectors — any systemic risk to the banking industry has the potential to ripple across the entire economy. There has been no perceptible improvement in the health of domestic banks, even six months after the RBI’s previous report had highlighted the sector’s high vulnerability on account of the increase in capital requirement and worsening asset quality, spotlighting the need for urgent policy interventions. Some measures have been initiated and others are in the …